The Fire At Sea
by LoLoGreeneVines
Summary: Dr. Granger witnesses an explosion out to sea and goes to investigate. A plot idea JKR originally intended to be the first chapter of Philosopher's Stone, but quickly changed as it didn't tie in with the plot for the rest of the series.


**Author's notes: After having poked around on JoRo's website aaaages ago, I found out that in the original draft of PS she intended for the Potters to live on a remote island and for Hermione's father (on the mainland) to witness an explosion out to sea, go sailing out to it and find the Potters' bodies in their wrecked house. Jo says she realised this wouldn't fit well with the books, so she got rid of it very quickly. Obviously, this is a bit AU, but it's also _kind of _canon. If that makes sense. Anyway, I hope you like it, I realise Jo could have written it a squillion times better but since she's not going to... here it is. :)**

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><p>David Granger lowered the telescope from his eye and sighed. Even though he could be found outside in a parka in mid-winter gazing up over the ocean at the stars, even his enthusiasm for astrophysics wasn't enough to banish the thick clouds that were gathering overhead and he was realising that tonight stargazing just wouldn't be possible.<p>

Just as he was staring out to sea, taking in the gigantic cumulo-nimbuses that were gradually obscuring any visible pinpricks of light in the sky, David saw a sudden flash of green light coming from what seemed to be the middle of the ocean, where David knew there was a small island. A couple of seconds later, he heard the bang that could only have accompanied what could only have been an explosion, quite different from the rumble of thunder he would have been expecting if it were just part of an electrical storm. But still, a _green _explosion? David knew enough about physics to know that you just couldn't _get _green fire. Maybe there had been an explosion at a copper factory?

_No,_ David told himself. _You go sailing near that old rock with Jenkins all the time. You'd _know_ if there was a copper factory on it._ All the same, it did look slightly as if the rock was on fire, and it wasn't just the occasional flashes of lightning...

"Jane, dear, would you come out here quickly?" David called to his wife, who was indoors supervising their two-year-old daughter.

"What is it, David? It looks like it's about to rain," said Jane as she emerged from the back door, little Hermione toddling after her clutching a picture book.

"Over there, darling," said David, pointing in the direction of the island, as lightning forked overhead. "Does that look like fire to you?"

Jane picked up Hermione, receiving an accidental clout from the book her daughter was holding, and frowned into the gloom.

"I can certainly see something flickering in the distance," she said, as the toddler giggled. "It could well be a fire. I didn't think there was anything on that rock that _could _catch on fire, though."

"Maybe the lightning hit a tree or something. I don't know," said David, purposefully neglecting to mention that he was fairly certain the flash he had seen was green. He doubted his wife would have believed him.

"Well, if a burning tree was all you wanted to show me, I may as well go back inside," Jane said. "Do you mind?" David shook his head, still staring transfixed out to sea. Jane carried Hermione back indoors, as David made up his mind.

"Darling," he called, not even bothering to turn towards the house, as he felt the first splashes of rain hit his face. "I'm going to take the old sailing boat out to the island. This looks too bright to be just a tree."

He heard the voice of his wife yelling "you're mad..." and Hermione chanting "daddy, daddy, daddy..." over the crescendo-ing thunder, but before he could hear anything else his girls said he grabbed a bucket from the shed and ran down to the family's private dock as the rain got steadily heavier.

When he got to the dock, David immediately got into his small boat, raised the sail and set off. Although the wind had picked up and was easily caught in the sail, the waters were choppy and David was inordinately relieved to see that he had remembered to stow a lifejacket under the wooden seat last time he and Jenkins went out.

Constantly looking in the direction of the island and occasionally pausing to bail out buckets of rainwater, David noticed that the closer he got to it, the dimmer the fire seemed to burn. _The rain must be gradually putting it out, _he thought, as the rain grew even heavier and the waves buffeted the small boat around even more.

After about twenty minutes the fire had apparently gone out and David was relying on torchlight alone to make the last couple of hundred yards to the island. By this point he could see the outline of the island against the horizon, and he could immediately tell that something about this familiar landscape had changed; where there had once been a completely flat plateau with one or two trees there was now a large, misshapen mass. David was perplexed, after all, things like that didn't just appear overnight. Where had this thing come from?

David reached the shore and clambered out of the boat, tying it to a wooden outpost. He walked up the small, shingly beach, pulling his coat tighter around him to protect himself from the ever-worsening weather conditions, and approached this new mass.

A house had appeared on the rocky land overnight.

Or rather, the charred remains of a house, with the right-hand side of the top floor completely destroyed. A gas explosion? David heard a noise that sounded almost like a vehicle revving above him, and looked up. Was it just his imagination, or was there a giant motorbike rapidly getting smaller in the sky, until it disappeared in the distance? _Nah, _David thought. _That's not possible. It was just the thunder._

As David approached the house, he noticed that despite the fact that it had obviously been alight, it looked somewhat weathered, as if it had stood there for many years. This deeply puzzled David, as he was absolutely positive he had never seen it before in his many years of sailing around the small island, and there was no way he could have missed it.

David pushed these thoughts to one side, held out a hand and gently pushed the blackened door. It gave way without putting up any sort of resistance, so he walked inside. He briefly walked around the bottom floor, and he noticed a strange mahogany stick lying on the sofa. _Odd,_ David thought. He reached out a hand to pick it up, but as he did a tortoiseshell cat streaked out from under the sofa and pushed the stick under the remains of a cupboard, where David couldn't reach it.

The cat then looked at him in terror, shaking with fear. David outstretched a hand to the cat, who had apparently been through quite a lot this evening. The cat evidently judged him to not be a threat, for it rubbed against his hands and wound around his legs, before walking out of the door and leading David to another door, leading to what could only have been the kitchen. He pushed it open and was greeted by the sight of a tall man with untidy black hair lying on the ground by the back door, his glasses askew and his eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling.

David took an involuntary step backwards. Yes, he was a dentist and accustomed to spending all day staring inside people's mouths, but a corpse was certainly too much for him. The cat rubbed against the body, placing its paws on the dead man's chest. David felt sorry for it, the cat seemed to recognise that its human was dead.

_Or human_s, David realised, his heart sinking, spotting a supply of baby food in the corner and putting two and two together. _What am I going to find if I go upstairs? It doesn't even bear thinking about._

The cat turned to David, miaowing, and stalked out of the room. David followed the cat up the stairs, and saw that a door leading off the landing was open. He didn't even have to enter the room to realise that inside it was a beautiful woman with red hair slumped against a cot, a look of terror on her face and her emerald green eyes fixed unblinkingly on the sky above her, for the roof had been destroyed and the rain poured freely into the room.

Like it had done for the man, the cat rubbed against the woman's corpse, but all David could think about was the empty cot. _Where was the baby? _It wasn't with either of its parents, but surely then the cot would be the natural place for it to be?

As David was pondering this mystery, the cat rubbed against his leg again and led him out of the room. _She is quite right, _David thought. _I think I've seen enough tonight._

David left the house and started walking down to his boat, maybe if he returned quickly he could phone the police and report the incident as he suspected nobody else was aware of it. When he got to the boat, he realised that the cat was still following him.

"You want to come home with me, girl?" he asked the tortoiseshell. The cat gave a small miaow and jumped into the boat. "Well, I suppose that settles it," David said, laying a tarpaulin over the now curled-up cat to keep her dry.

He had no idea what he was going to tell Jane about the cat, but Hermione would probably be pleased with the animal. A bigger problem was how he was going to raise the alarm about this gas explosion, the two dead people and the mystery of the missing baby.


End file.
